Dressed in Black

I never dreamed that a picture of a black cat against a black background would turn out, but these show I was wrong. I was packing for one of my crafts shows and had my black table drape out on the table. Izzy immediately claimed it as hers. :)

Santa Candy Dish

Made this cute candy dish from paper bags! The bags actually had the image of Santa on their sides. I cut them out, glued them to cardstock, added the hats, and viola...a Santa candy dish. Only requirement is that you have to use wrapped candy, and, oh yes, you can't put the dish in the dishwasher! :)

Crafts Fair Season

It's that time of the year again...the time for selling my items at local crafts fairs. I love this time of the year. The days are getting colder, thoughts of the holidays start to surface, and ladies at come in wearing Thanksgiving and Christmas sweatshirts. You know that the holidays are almost here!

This year I've got booths at five different crafts shows -- The most I've ever had. The first three have been very slow, which is a little discouraging. Several of us crafters have discussed the possible reasons for this, and all include the basic idea that with the economy down people just do not have the extra disposable income to spend. No matter what the reason, I'm hoping sales will pick up as the holidays draw nearer.

Here are a couple of pictures of my booth at the most recent show I attended.

Majestic Montana!

My husband and I just returned from a much-needed vacation to visit his sister's family in Whitefish. We had a blast. The mountains, especially Glacier Nat'l Park, were phenomenal. There's just no picture that can show the magnitude of its grandeur. It's something you have to see in person to understand. Needless to say, I'm going to create one heck of a scrapbook with more than 800 photos we took while there.

Best Friends Photo Box

One of the latest additions to my Etsy site (http://www.paperdragonflies.etsy.com/) is this cute "Best Friends" photo box. A girl of any age would love to have this cute and sassy place to show off photos of all her BFF (best friends forever)!

Leopold -- the squirrel

This past Friday night my son and his girlfriend befriended the most unlikely of friends...a small baby squirrel. This tiny squirrel, no more than a few weeks old, was chased up the side of her house by cats and clung, terrified, to the side of the house for more than 6 hours. Being so traumatized, Leopold (name he was given) was glad to be rescued and feel the warm loving hands of humans. "Hey, this isn't so bad", claimed Leopold. "These humans are actually nice people and are here to help me. Therefore, I'm going to repay their kindness with squirrel friendship!" And he did!

As you can see, Leopold has become quite smitten with his new human friends. After spending the weekend with his human friends, Leopold is going to be handed over to a local wildlife rehab facility to be introduced back to the wild.

Parents' Dorm Nightmare!

Our boys moved into the dorms last week. As bad as the empty-nest syndrome is, this sign created our worse nightmare! Perhaps all those stories you hear about dorms is true? Hopefully not.

Note: If you don't get this, look again...and really concentrate on the times listed. See the mistake? These were posted on all the floors of the dorms!

Picture Perfect Purses

These little purse-shaped mini albums have been one of my favorite items I've made to date. They are rather difficult (really more time consuming than difficult) to make, but well worth the effort. They are just adorable hanging from a doorknob or hook on the wall. I saw something similar online one day and went in and made a pattern for my own version. I've made quite a few of them and they are great sellers at crafts shows.

Backyard's Abuzz

Our surprize lilies had a surprize visitor today!

Izzy's All Wrapped Up

My cat, Izzy, is always on my table when I'm scrapbooking. Here's a picture I caught of her when she was playing in my ribbons. She's not happy unless she's right in the middle of everything! I love my Izzy!

The Cat's Out of the Bag....Literally!

I found these cool paper bags at Michael's the other day. They just "meowed" out to me to make them into mini photo albums. The big green eyes are awesome! I made 3 albums out of the bags and they are for sale on my Etsy site at http://www.paperdragonflies.etsy.com/. Just in time for Halloween!

Welcome to my blog!

I start off on this new adventure with guarded enthusiasm. I've never been one to openly share things with people I do not know, but my desire to share the need for scrapbooking with others is causing me to step out into new territories.

Scrapbooking has become a major part of my life over the past 10 years. As my twin boys have gone from elementary through high school, the need to "record" memories has increased. I wanted to be the historian for our family....giving them scrapbooks they could look back on as they go through their lives. The special times we have shared are now captured forever.

As I've scrapbooked over the years, I've learned all kinds of new techniques and have been exposed to many new memory-keeping ideas. Being creative, I've taken many of these ideas and made them into products that others can use to keep their memories. I've sold some at craft fairs, but these are too few and far between. That's when I came upon ETSY, a place to sell homemade items online. I set up an account, posted several of my items, and sold some right away. Here's some samples of items I've had on my Etsy account:

Take a look at my Etsy page to see more items: http://www.paperdragonflies.etsy.com/